Blue Lantern (27 page)

“It isn't that simple. IID have issued a warrant for my arrest on corruption charges.”

“Hell,” Marsden said, in a lower tone. “A charge can be killed. I can do it. Mike, take time to think. You're ditching a damn fine career.”

“We've agreed. It's a dead end for me.”

“No. Take the money. I can fix it. Stop acting like a puritan auntie. Get real!”

“No,” Brodie said, but not with any conviction. He could get used to the Gucci shoes.

Marsden bent down to get closer to Brodie. “OK,” he allowed, “If you were to stay, I could get you a commercial job at twice your present salary. You're smart. You can talk, and handle paper. They need people like you. I have a number of contacts. That's serious. You become a businessman.”

“Why don't you do it?”

“I'm making plenty, Mike and I'm keen on my work. You could be the same, if only you'll agree to stay.”

“Agree to stay – sounds like I'm on a kind of licence.”

“Come and live with me, in my apartment, Mike,” Marsden said softly. “We could have a hell of a time.”

Brodie moved his head negatively before Marsden had finished. Marsden's mouth took a grim down-turn, but he said nothing for a few seconds.

“I'm just thinking whether I should arrest you.”

Brodie tried to brush the threat off, but he realized Marsden could do it, and might do it.

“It would be for you, Mike. Give you time.”

“I'll swim out to Harold's yacht.”

“Don't be pathetic,” Marsden scoffed. “I can stop any yacht leaving the harbour. It wouldn't take five minutes to get a patrol boat.”

“I'll fight the charges, and get away eventually.”

“Brave and stupid words.”

“Andy, if you arrest me, it won't do
us
any good.”

Marsden sighed, and searched the horizon, out to Ma Wan Island, and Lantau, where the junks disappeared in the haze. “I don't know why I bothered with you.”

Brodie's spirits lifted, but he realized Marsden wasn't a man to face rejection. He was a winner, and Brodie was trying to understand what was going on behind the blue-black cheeks and glaring convex eyeballs.

“I tell you what, I'll get leave, and fly down to Manila and meet you there, and we can take a few days looking at the bars and the girls. That would be something wouldn't it? We'll work things out quietly while we're down there.”

It was a startling, and pointless idea to Brodie, and left him with what he had avoided in the past, the need to be frank. “Andy, I'm going with somebody,” he said apologetically.

“You're what? Who?”

“The girl you saw me with at the hospital.”

“The physio? Oh, yes, quite a little number.”

“The doctor.”

“You with a doctor?” Marsden said, his face rippling with incredulity. “You're joking.”

“No. Serious. I'm keen on her.”

“Well, you're a fine specimen of an Anglo Saxon, or are you a Celt?” Marsden blurted. “But you're also a gwailo cop, a Blue Lantern, a running dog. You stink in the nose of any fastidious Chinese, like mutton or cheese.”

“Don't spoil it, Andy.”

“Listen Mike, no Chinese woman of education and means is going to give you anything, except a place in her bed on the quiet, if it's vacant.”

“Lay off. I care for her.”

“You're a fantasist, Mike, a fucking fantasist.”

“It's not fantasy. She's coming with me to Manila.”

“Then she's a head-case, or she's Portugese, or she's got a bloody wooden leg!”

Brodie ignored the outburst. “Give this to Vannesa,” he said quietly, throwing one of Flinn's packets at Marsden's feet. “I kept it hidden in my locker at the gym. It'll save me posting it.”

Brodie was keeping a lookout all round for the police, and Helen. And he could see a man in a red shirt signalling from the deck of
Pacific Cloud
. Brodie waved in response. “My transport.”

“After what I did for you, shielding you from a murder charge. I thought we were going to be friends.”

Brodie looked away from Marsden's distraught face, and saw his own coppered forearm, the hairs shining in the sun. He unclipped the metal bracelet of his watch, exposing a pale band of white flesh where the Rolex Oyster had rested, like an accusing eye. He held it out to Marsden.

“I'm sorry. I let Sherwin down, and myself. And you. I don't want to be like Flinn and Hudson. You've been good to me Andy, and we've had fun. But I can't live with you.”

“What's this for?” Marsden said, disregarding his words, and taking the watch.

“A present for Gary when he grows up.”

The urgent stroke of the crewman rowing toward them, was a reminder of another inexorable timetable. Andy Marsden drew himself up, jutted his chin, and began to stride back stiffly along the breakwater. He disappeared into the cruiser without looking back, and it accelerated rapidly away.

The dinghy bumped alongside the concrete blocks. Brodie couldn't remember the crewman's name.

“Come on, Mike. Get aboard. There's a lot of work to be done.”

“I want to wait for Helen.”

“I'm not rowing back again. And Harold says you've got to move.”

“I'll get a sampan. I said I'd wait here.”

The man shrugged, fended off the rocks with an oar, and began to row back to
Pacific Cloud
.

Brodie returned his glance to the quayside. He frantically sought for Helen. He waited and watched the hands on the Martell Tower clock tick off the minutes to eleven. Helen had promised to come, and that meant she would come. He would be safer on the boat, but… Perhaps, at Mongkok, they already knew that he had flown. But Flinn didn't know anything about the Manila trip.

Brodie's chest heaved when he saw a figure advancing toward him, her hair fluttering in the wind. She raised her arm, and he waved. She was carrying only a small handbag … dressed all wrong. He thought Helen might come, only to say she'd decided against going. He crushed the thought. He justified the reasonableness of the trip for both of them; a short vacation; time to get to know each other better; a tiny investment in their relationship. Then he heard her saying that going away with him would make it more difficult for her to give him up, and adding with her usual crisp decision, “You're in trouble here. You can't stay. You should go while you can.” He remembered how she looked at him when he questioned her about her suitor, at Aberdeen; it was as though he was so far away, she had to narrow her eyes to see him.

“Come on, Mike!” a voice boomed across the water from a loud hailer.

He was sure Helen was standing on the path. He could see her delicate wrist as she gestured. Her hair blew like a flag on one side of her head… The breakwater path was deserted. Now, two black, Ford Zephyr saloons, unmarked police cars, pulled up at the roadside. Brodie leaped up desperately. The sun was pounding the blistering back of his neck.

“Hey, you, Mistah!” a girl in a sampan shouted raucously.

She had seen and heard the signals from the yacht, and spied the possibility of a fare. Her shallow craft nudged the blocks near him, as she held it steady with her pole. With a last sweep of eyes along the empty path to the road, Brodie stepped into the sampan with his bag, and let the girl pole him out to the yacht. He looked back at the two inert black cars.

Brodie boarded, threw his bag on the tiny bunk he was allotted, and acknowledged the other crew members whom he knew slightly. Harold Evans affected to be busy and gave no greeting. There was an undertone of resentment at his lateness. He silently helped the crew fold and stow sails and ropes. He accepted the appointment as cook without complaint, a penalty for his tardiness, and packed the tin food, piled in the galley, into the lockers. Every few minutes, he put his head up out of the cockpit to search the breakwater for that small, feminine figure – and to search the sea for an approaching patrol boat. The police cars were still there. He felt sick with fear, and loss.

Harold Evans was firm about the timing. He said it would have been useful to have a doctor on board, but her non-arrival wasn't going to stop them. The preparations were complete twenty minutes after Brodie boarded, and they cast off the mooring.
Pacific Cloud
jostled out of the typhoon shelter with her competitors. The flotilla spread out over the dazzling water. Brodie's malady was increased by
Pacific Cloud's
heaving. They began testing and adjusting their gear, and getting last-moment instructions on the radio from the stewards. As they navigated to cross the starting line, the shouting, and chaffing and megaphoning between boats, and the wagering of bottles of Champagne, was a distant clamour inside Brodie's head. It was nearly noon; the fleet approached the starting line, a cannon shot, and they were away, a convoy of cabin cruisers creaming behind to see them off.

The breeze in the inner harbour was strong, and
Pacific Cloud
lay well over. Brodie had a duty on the foresail. Bare-footed, and bare-backed he clung to the lines, as spray dashed on to his golden skin. If he got away – if – he decided he would post a letter to Helen as soon as they reached Manila. While he hung on the ropes, with the void of sea and sky around him, he began to rehearse that many things he had to say, the mistakes, the misunderstandings, the changes he intended to make in his life.

While the deck beneath his feet squirmed like a live creature, he could see the apartment blocks and city buildings of Kowloon, tombstones in the bluish haze. On the island side, they were nearer the shore.
Pacific Cloud
sailed at such an angle to the Bank of China Building, and the Hilton Hotel behind it, that the red flag on one building, and the Union Jack on the other, were close; two garishly robed gentlemen strolling together in a windy garden.